I had read the bad reviews on this site and was very wary of our stay. I shouldn't have been! The staff were pleasant, unfortunately their English wasn't great, but otherwise polite and kind. Sure, the reception area probably needed some new rugs laid out, but it certainly wasn't dirty. We arrived at 12:30, hoping to just check in and leave our bags behind reception so we could get to touring Melbourne straight away, but to our surprise, our room was ready to go. Our room, Courtyard Queen room, was clean, tidy, well decorated, worth the money we paid. I only have two recommendations for the room: a better folder filled with more information about the hotel, its services and surrounds, and secondly, the room stays dark all day, there is only a thin tall window to light the room. Other then that, we loved our stay! Try the Jarrah Room Chinese restaurant next door, the food was amazing, though the service was average. A nice hotel in a convenient position for touring Melbourne and its surrounds.

A group of our friends booked this hotel for wedding, we had in the city. My husband and I checked in at 3pm, we were given the key to our room. We took our bags to our room (Receptin didn't offer to get someone to take them) to find that the room had not been cleaned. The bed was unmade, towels were in the bathroom sink and a opened condom packet was on the bedside table. We went down to reception to let them know (They said there was a miscommuncation between house keeping and the front desk). They then gave us a room on another level. That was all the hotel offered us.
We opened the door to our new room and it smelt like it had never been open for over a year.

We will not be staying at this hotel again no matter how cheap it is.

This is by no means a complaint, it is a tip to future visitors to not get caught by doing the virtual tour on the hotel website and thinking that the 1 bedroom studio has any more facilities than what is advertised. Even though there is a microwave and a sink, cuboards and drawers, which can be clearly seen on the virtual tour, there are no facilities in the room for using either. Whilst we weren't planning on cooking in the room, we did take our own cereal thinking that we could save a little money by providing our own breakfast, however when they advertise that there are tea and coffee making facilities, that is absolutely all there is - 2 cups, 2 saucers, 2 teaspoons, tea, coffee, sugar and 2 biscuits. We were able to overcome this problem by paying a refundable deposit to the restaurant downstairs, who then provided us with plates, bowls, spoons and knives and forks, however as the restaurant is an Asian one, the bowls and spoons were those used in the restaurant for serving soup, which are not very easy to eat cereal with, and, we then had no way of washing up, as even though there is a sink, there is no dishwashing liquid, nor a tea towel, nor a dish cloth. We did find though, the day we left the dirty bowls in the sink, housekeeping washed them up, but then the next couple of days we rinsed them in boiling water ourselves, and they didn't get touched at all by housekeeping. We also found the room to be quite sparse with regards to other amenities too, there was no price list for the mini bar, and there was no "do not disturb" sign. They also advertise to hang the towels up if you are happy to let them dry and reuse them, however even though we did this, they got changed every day. This is annoying when they ask you to do the right thing to try to save water and the environment, but then don't live up to the expectation themselves. Having said all that, we found the hotel to be very reasonably priced, it's in a good location, within walking distance of a lot of places and has a tram stop at both corners, so nothing in Melbourne is too far away.

I stayed here for four nights. We were in Melbourne to watch the Australian Open tennis, like most other people in the hotel at this busy time of year.

My wife and I stayed in a "business room" with a window facing Spencer Street. Room size was good (compared to the very small refurbished courtyard rooms which my sister stayed in). The room was quiet. Aircon worked well at this hot time of year. There was a mini-bar fridge, with the size of the fridge quite large for a cheap hotel. There was a jug for boiling water for tea and coffee. The TV was a small old-style analog unit, with poor reception (in my sister's courtyard room she had a brand new digital flat screen with perfect reception). The room was clean enough. The location of the hotel is towards the casino/aquarium end of the intersection of Flinders street and Spencer street. Its a 5-10 minute walk to the casino; a 15 minute walk to Federation Square.

One suggestion: I strongly recommend putting the "Do not disturb" sign on your door before you go to sleep. We like to sleep in and on our first two mornings we disturbed at around 9-10 am by knocks on the door from the room cleaners, eager to clean our room. However, with the "do not disturb" sign on the door, no such problem.